Next year’s birthday will be the Big One – 60! While everyone at this age is winding down, I’m revving up. I’m planning on going back to work after being unemployed for…forever. Let’s just say that big hair and suits with shoulder pads were in fashion the last time I was steadily employed.
There have been numerous paying jobs and volunteer activities over the last twenty-five years, but nothing that would indicate a career path. My resume looks like a schizophrenic on steroids: Parent Association President, Campaign Assistant for Gubernatorial Election, Associate Editor for Poetry Press, ESL Teacher. Is there a pattern there? No, just jack of all trades, master of none.
Why didn’t I work steadily all those years? I had my excuses: Monday through Friday, I had the sole responsibility of caring for the children. In addition to long distance trips, my husband worked in the World Trade Center – two hours round trip from home. After 9/11, he commuted weekly to another state for almost a decade.
My plan to find a full or part-time job was thwarted by the twenty-mile round trip drive to a school in another town. Instead of seeking out a paying job, I filled any free hours with volunteer activities, all very fulfilling at the time.
When I was raising my kids, I never felt inadequate or insecure about not working. Now that they’ve left home, I have a crisis of confidence. It seems like the question crops up more often. “What do you do?” I falter and try to make my writing sound like a lucrative form of self-employment. For many years I was able to say, “I’m a stay-at-home mom. My husband travels constantly,” I convinced myself that I was doing the right thing by not working.
I car pooled with working moms who scared me off-mothers who were stretched to the max, needing me to pick up their kids on many of their scheduled afternoons. Even with the extra driving, I was relieved not to be in their shoes: harried, overworked, exhausted. In retrospect, I should and could have done it all. I still know all those kids, now twenty-somethings, and they’ve turned out just fine. The mothers haven’t done too badly either, excelling at their careers.
Why am I bothering to work at this ripe old age? What can someone like me do after sitting on the sidelines for so long? I want to combine all my interests: writing, reading, teaching, helping young people. After studying writing and proofreading fellow writers’ work, I can help students compose a decent college essay and prep for the standardized tests. Every parent is freaking out about their kids’ SAT/ACT scores. It’s a national epidemic.
Recently, I took the plunge and sent my resume to a tutoring center. Surprise, they called me for an interview and now I have one last hurdle before landing this job. I need to score high enough on the ACT to be accepted. Sound familiar. I’ll have to cram just like my potential students. Well, I know what I’ll be doing during next week’s family vacation.
Reentering the job market at sixty instead of forty is daunting.